COMMENTARY: STORAGE FACILITIES FOR CIVILIAN GUNS IS ONE STUPID IDEA
The Liberals continue to float their trial balloons about forcing Canadians to store all their civilian firearms in central repositories. This is arguably the stupidest idea to come our way since … well, who can even say?
Let’s look at some government agencies to see how well they do with lost and stolen firearms.
First, there is the issue of firearms left unattended in police vehicles. If Halifax’s March 2015 theft, Grand Prairie’s October 2015 theft or Winnipeg’s October 2015 theft are examples, that practice should end immediately.
In all three cases RCMP firearms were stolen from unattended vehicles.
In the Winnipeg case that stolen police firearm was used to shoot a 16-year-old girl. Winnipeg Police charged Matthew Wilfred McKay with two counts of attempted murder, and both he and Matthew Andrew Miles, 25, also face a host of other weapons-related charges including theft of the firearm. Both men were already under a prohibition order.
The firearm used to commit this tragic crime was stolen from an RCMP cruiser parked outside an officer’s home in southwest Winnipeg. While the Winnipeg Police readily admit storing firearms in unattended vehicles is prohibited, the RCMP is not so forthcoming. Claiming “ongoing investigation”, they refused to specify whether that is also the case for the RCMP.
Dennis Young’s Access to Information Request (ATI) dated September 14, 2011 shows this is not an isolated incident. The ATI response revealed that 32 firearms were “lost or stolen” from the RCMP and that 316 firearms were “lost or stolen” from other police services across Canada.
While the numbers and types of firearms stolen from CN Police, Surete du Quebec, Royal Newfoundland Constabulary and the OPP were blacked out, the total of 316 minus the numbers stolen from municipal and aboriginal police show 30 firearms were “lost or stolen” from these Police agencies.
Another 80 firearms were “lost or stolen” from other unnamed public service agencies.
The military will not say how many firearms are lost and stolen from their arsenals.
Some politicians have expressed that the only people who should possess firearms are the police and military. Since our police forces can’t keep their guns from being “lost or stolen” how on earth can these people believe civilian firearms stored in “central storage sites” will be safe?
Presumably, civilian firearms would be stored at gun clubs. Who will pay for the construction of secure storage facilities at gun clubs across the nation? Who will guard these storage facilities? And what will happen when a criminal gang decides it wants all the guns inside one of these storage facilities?
Let’s do the math. Average size pistol club? 500 members. Average number of restricted/prohibited firearms per member? Five guns. That’s 2500 restricted/prohibited firearms all in one place at the same time being guarded by the club’s caretaker or a $15/hour security guard.
Many shooting ranges are in remote rural locations and police response time to an alarm are measured in half-hours, not minutes. Besides, the bad guys will have 2500 guns. Our coppers are brave but not stupid, and they will be highly unlikely to rush into that situation. So when some criminals decide they want the guns from inside one of these storage facilities, what is stopping them?
The criminals will get away unscathed. Long gone by the time police arrive and this is surely no fault of our men and women in uniform. They will now have to deal with these firearms in the hands of criminals. It’s just one of many unintended consequences of a really lousy idea.
Our firearms are currently protected by anonymity and proximity. It works pretty well and really needs to be left alone. Let’s hope sanity prevails, not the reality-challenged idiots that came up with this basket full of stupid.
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WELCOME TO THE SWISS RIFLE CLUB CALGARY: Our biggest Team CSSA welcome goes out to the Swiss Rifle Club Calgary. We are pleased to announce the club has become our latest member of Team CSSA and we look forward to a long and happy relationship.
The S.R.C.C. (Swiss Rifle Club Calgary) was started in the mid 1970’s and consisted primarily of Swiss Canadians who wished to practice the traditional shooting programs found in Switzerland. Currently the club accepts membership applications from non Swiss as well.
The Club has their own firearms which they permit visitors and those who do not possess their own rifle to use, the only cost involved is the purchase of Swiss ammunition which the club provides at a nominal cost. The shooting atmosphere is a relaxed one, where friendship and enjoying oneself is paramount.
CSSA Executive Director Tony Bernardo said, ” The CSSA is delighted to have a terrific club like S.R.C.C. in our family. This club has always carried tremendous respect within Canada’s shooting community.”
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COME TO THE CALGARY SHOOTING CENTRE THIS WEEKEND!: The CSSA is proud to partner with the Calgary Shooting Centre for SIG Day Open House, February 20, 2016. Come shoot a new SIG firearm, enjoy the door prizes, giveaways and special event pricing, and meet CSSA Executive Director Tony Bernardo!
The event runs from 10:00 am to 5:00 pm and the proceeds from the admission and draws goes to the CSSA to help retain your firearms freedoms. Come on out, have a blast and support the cause.
Calgary Shooting Centre Ltd.
Bay 4, 7130 Fisher Road SE
Calgary, AB T2H 0W3
+1 (403) 451-1777
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HELP SUPPORT THE GREAT WORK THE CSSA DOES TO PROTECT YOUR RIGHTS. DONATE HERE
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EDITOR’S NOTE: This issue of the E-News contains a lot of inaccurate information reported by the mainstream media. Reader discretion is advised.
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FEDERAL LIBERALS TO HAND FINAL FIREARMS APPROVAL BACK TO RCMP BUREAUCRATS (Douglas Quan | National Post | February 12, 2016)
Mounties will once again have final authority over the classification of firearms, the Liberal government says, reversing legislative changes made by the Conservatives allowing Cabinet to override RCMP decisions.
Police are the “experts” in these matters, Scott Bardsley, a spokesman for Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale, said in an email Friday.
“We know of no other Western democracy,” he added, in which a cabinet or government department has the authority to override firearms classification rules set out in legislation.
Bardsley said details would be announced in “due course.”
Message boards on gun enthusiasts’ websites have been awash in recent weeks with speculation about what types of gun laws the Liberals would introduce.
A spokesman for the Canadian Shooting Sports Association said Friday it was “immoral” that a technician working in an RCMP lab should be allowed to have the final say on gun restrictions.
“How can a bureaucrat wave a pen and criminalize hundreds, thousands of people,” said Tony Bernardo, the association’s executive director. “We elect parliamentarians to make our laws. … We would not tolerate police making law in any other segment of society.”
The controversy erupted in early 2014 when the RCMP changed the status of Swiss Arms rifles and Czech-made CZ-858 rifles from restricted or non-restricted to prohibited.
RCMP technicians judged the guns, which had been legal in Canada for years, could too easily be converted from semi-automatic to automatic weapons.
Owners were outraged. In an attempt to quell the backlash, Steven Blaney, then the public safety minister, admonished the “unelected bureaucrats” and granted affected gun owners a temporary amnesty that would shield them from prosecution.
He followed that up with Bill C-42, the Common Sense Firearms Licensing Act, that included a provision giving Cabinet the ability to remove restrictions after getting “independent expert advice.”
The Conservatives exercised that new authority before last fall’s federal election — reversing the ban on the Swiss- and Czech-made rifles.
Bardsley cited data Friday showing there are nearly 6,000 victims of violent crime every year in which firearms are present.
“We believe in balanced, effective gun control that prioritizes public safety while ensuring law-abiding firearms owners do not face unfair treatment under the law,” he said.
Bardsley said the government does not plan to reintroduce the federal long-gun registry.
Work, however, is underway to modify the membership of the minister’s firearms advisory committee. During the election, the Liberals promised to add public health advocates, representatives from women’s groups and lawyers to the committee so it wasn’t stacked with gun industry representatives.
Bernardo, who had a seat on the committee, said he worries non-firearms experts will outnumber members of the firearms community.
“We wouldn’t take a committee meant to (examine) surgical procedures and put plumbers on that committee,” he said.
‘We elect parliamentarians to make our laws. … We would not tolerate police making law in any other segment of society’
The RCMP said it had no comment.
Not all the RCMP’s gun-classification decisions have upset gun owners. In fact, some were rejoicing this month over the RCMP’s decision to reclassify the Akdal MKA 1919 from restricted to non-restricted status.
The RCMP also reportedly allowed the Norinco Type 81 rifle to be imported in restricted or non-restricted configurations, despite its similarities to the banned AK-47.
The No-Nonsense Canadian Firearms Blog called it a “pleasantly unexpected decision.”
The National Firearms Association wrote on its Facebook page: “We can hardly believe it.”
But one person warned fellow gun enthusiasts about sending mixed messages: “Be careful boys,” he wrote, “we are applauding and allowing the RCMP to reclassify firearms which we all believed and argued was not their job. … It’s great when it is in our favour but what will your argument be when they start prohibiting the restricted firearms you have now? We can’t have it both ways.”
See the story: http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/canadian-politics/federal-liberals-to-hand-final-firearms-approval-back-to-rcmp-bureaucrats
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CANADIANS CRACK DOWN ON GUNS, ALARMED BY FLOW FROM U.S. (William Marsden | The Washington Post | February 15, 2016)
MONTREAL – Canada bans most guns and has a minuscule number of gun-related homicides a year. But, worried about smuggled firearms from the United States, its government is preparing to stiffen its already tough gun laws and step up border surveillance.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has promised new regulations and a string of measures to counter gun smuggling, which is regarded here as a dangerous problem underscoring the United States’ much looser firearm laws.
The move comes as police have discovered an increased number of high-powered handguns, semiautomatic and automatic weapons in Canadian cities.
Since 2005, Toronto has had the worst of it. As gun battles broke out across the city between rival street gangs that year, innocent people got caught in the crossfire.
Jane Creba, 15, was killed when gang members began firing through Christmas holiday crowds downtown. The high school student became a symbol of what came to be known as the Year of the Gun.
Homicides in Toronto spiked to 80 in 2005, from 64 in 2004, and the majority were shooting-related. About 70 percent of the guns used were handguns and automatic weapons smuggled from the United States, police say.
Since then, the number of shootings has decreased, but the danger still lurks. How many trafficked guns cross the border is unknown. But the Canadian Border Services Agency said there has been a continued increase in gun seizures. In 2012, agents seized 226 illegal weapons (mostly handguns). By 2015, that figure had risen to 316.
Toronto police last month responded to the threat posed by high-powered firearms by announcing that the city’s 17 precincts would acquire 50 semiautomatic, short-barreled assault rifles, raising fears about the militarization of Canadian police.
Toronto Police Chief Mark Saunders told reporters in December that police had seized 11 machine guns, adding that he was worried about officer safety.
Yet compared with the United States, the incidence of gun violence in Canada is almost minute. The latest figures, from 2014, show only 156 gun-related homicides in Canada compared with 10,945 in its more populous southern neighbor.
What alarms Canadians is that recent figures show an increase of 21 gun-related killings in 2014, a rise of 14 percent.
Trudeau promised in December to introduce stricter laws that would “get handguns and assault weapons off our streets.”
The country’s 5,526-mile border with the United States makes smuggling into Canada a relatively easy game, particularly in the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River regions.
Yet smugglers still employ some deviously clever tactics.
In one recent investigation, Toronto police discovered that Canadian smugglers were attaching handguns and GPS devices to the undercarriages of vehicles owned by Ontario residents attending sports events in the Detroit area. The smugglers then tracked the cars back into Canada, where they removed the weapons without the vehicle owner’s knowledge.
In Quebec, police traced more than a dozen handguns used in gang-related killings to a man in Burlington, Vt., who had ordered them legally through the mail and then sold them to smugglers who took them across the St. Lawrence River into Canada.
“Unfortunately it is easier to get a gun illegally in Canada than it is to get one legally,” said Blair Hagen, executive vice president of the National Firearms Association.
Handguns in Canada are forbidden — apart from certain low-caliber types used for target shooting. So are machine guns, semiautomatics (except for target shooting), silencers and large magazines.
To obtain a gun license, Canadians must go through extensive background checks that include criminal-record and mental-health checks as well as interviews with family members and former spouses. The application process can take up to six months.
Nothing in the Canadian constitution even remotely implies a right to own a firearm. Still, Canada is a nation of about 2 million registered gun owners — mostly hunters — who own an estimated 10 million to 20 million firearms. Many of these guns are in remote northern communities such as La Loche, Saskatchewan, where a teenager used a rifle to kill four people last month.
Canadian gun ownership is dwarfed by the estimated 357 million firearms owned by Americans, more than the U.S. population, according to a 2012 Congressional Research Service report and Washington Post estimate.
The Canadian government’s proposed measures would include spending 100 million Canadian dollars — about 72 million U.S. dollars — annually to investigate gun smuggling. The money also would be used to install devices at border stations to “detect and halt illegal guns from the United States.”
These could include hand-held X-ray devices or much larger machines that a vehicle would drive through. Canada already uses these devices for containers and commercial vehicles in its busier border stations.
In addition, the government has promised to pass a measure requiring gun importers to engrave the import year and country of manufacture on their products. Officials say this would help police identify trafficked firearms and move quickly to plug holes in border surveillance.
Gun lobby groups say the proposals would make it more difficult for law-abiding citizens to possess guns while doing nothing to stop crime.
Tony Bernardo, executive director of the Canadian Shooting Sports Association and its lobbying group, the Canadian Institute for Legislative Action, said the proposals to imprint firearms with the information is simply a “system to harass the Canadian industry and it will add to the cost [of a gun] by a couple of hundred dollars.”
See the story: http://www.adn.com/article/20160215/canadians-crack-down-guns-alarmed-flow-us
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LOOKING FOR UPCOMING GUN SHOWS AND MATCHES? Visit our website at: https://cssa-cila.org/upcoming-events-matches/
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LIBERAL GOVERNMENT MISFIRES ON PROMISED GUN MARKING MEASURES (By Jim Bronskill, The Canadian Press | February 12, 2016)
OTTAWA – The Liberal government has broken a promise to immediately implement firearm-marking regulations to help police trace guns used in crime.
On the eve of the Trudeau government’s Friday milestone of 100 days in office, the pledge had not been fulfilled.
Just before the August federal election call, the Conservative government quietly published a notice deferring the firearm-marking regulations until June 1, 2017 – the seventh time the measures had been delayed.
The regulations would require that specific, identifiable markings be stamped on firearms and had been slated to take effect Dec. 1 of last year.
The July 29 notice from Public Safety Canada said the delay would allow the government to continue consultations, despite six previous delays in enacting the regulations, first drafted in 2004.
In their election platform, the Liberals said they would “immediately” implement gun-marking regulations. The party also promised other, longer-term measures aimed at making it harder for criminals to get and use handguns and assault weapons.
The marking-regulation promise is also listed in a briefing book document prepared for the prime minister entitled “Key Commitments for Action in First 100 Days.”
The Liberal government is working to ensure the regulations come into force “as quickly as possible,” said Scott Bardsley, a spokesman for Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale. However, he added, the government is looking at “possible amendments” that would ensure the regulations are effective “without being too onerous for firearms owners and businesses.”
The long-planned regulations would require domestically manufactured firearms to bear the name of the manufacturer, serial number, and “Canada” or “CA.” Imported guns would have to carry the “Canada” or “CA” designation along with the last two digits of the year of import.
The measures would help Canada meet the requirements of the United Nations Firearms Protocol and a convention of the Organization of American States.
There is support among police for the marking scheme in order to expedite investigations into gun crimes and detect firearms trafficking, smuggling and stockpiling, the Public Safety notice says. The import markings can also help law enforcement determine whether to focus on a smuggling operation.
“Tracing can offer early investigative leads, contribute to cost efficiencies for police by simplifying efforts, focus investigations given that time is critical to solving crimes, and help to build a strong evidentiary case to obtain a conviction,” the notice says.
Some firearms advocates have argued the obligation to mark imported guns would mean acquiring marking technology or making arrangements for another company to apply markings, with an estimated cost of $200 per gun, the notice says.
However, an independent study commissioned by the government said the cost to stamp or engrave markings for Canadian manufacturers and large importers would range from nothing at all to $25 per firearm. It was not possible to gauge the impact on individuals and small importers.
The Coalition for Gun Control argues that marking is an essential tool for enforcement, helping states in their efforts to trace weapon flows and preventing diversion of legal guns to the illicit market.
The National Firearms Association disputes the notion that markings help police solve crime and would like to see the entire plan cancelled. Imposing the marking requirements would put an undue financial strain on businesses, the association says.
See the story: http://www.macleans.ca/politics/liberal-government-misfires-on-promised-gun-marking-measures/
* Editor’s note: This story is so wildly inaccurate as to be nonsensical.
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CANADA IN THE ROUGH – EPIC ATLANTIC OCEAN MOOSE
Join Keith on an epic mountain adventure in beautiful Newfoundland. With the Atlantic Ocean way below them in the horizon, they hike high through the mountains searching for big late-season rutting moose.
See the teaser: http://www.canadaintherough.com/epic-atlantic-ocean-moose/
Canada in the Rough can be found on OLN, WILD TV, and CHEX. For a full schedule, visit: http://www.canadaintherough.com/schedules/
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NUMBER OF RESTRICTED GUNS IN CANADA SHOT UP DURING HARPER’S GOVERNMENT (By Elizabeth Thompson | iPolitics | February 11, 2016)
The increase is found in calculations made by iPolitics from statistics found in several reports of the federal Commissioner of Firearms, which released its 2014 report last month.
One of the biggest increases was in Alberta, where the number of restricted guns rose 140 per cent between 2005 and 2014, the last year for which numbers are available. The slowest rise was in Quebec, where the number of restricted guns rose only 28 per cent over that time period.
Overall, the number of restricted firearms such as semi-automatic rifles and handguns registered in Canada rose from 398,876 in 2005 under former Liberal Prime Minister Paul Martin to 726,705 in 2014, the last year for which numbers are available.
However, the sharpest rise in restricted weapons came after the Conservatives formed a majority government and after they ended the requirement to register non-restricted firearms in 2012. The number of registered firearms rose 25.6 per cent between 2005 and 2010 but jumped 45 per cent between 2010 and 2014.
Overall, the rate of restricted and prohibited guns per capita rose 19 per cent across Canada between 2012 and 2014, with the highest increase in Nunavut (37.8 per cent) followed by Manitoba at 29.7 per cent and Alberta at 28 per cent.
While restricted firearms are on the rise, there does not appear to be a corresponding increase in the number of Canadians with firearms permits.
Wendy Cukier, president of the Coalition for Gun Control, says the big increase in the number of restricted firearms across Canada is cause for concern.
“At that rate, by 2020 we’ll have doubled the number of restricted weapons in this country than we had in 2009,” Cukier said. “That signals some real issues around licensing and screening practices and how rigorously the requirement that somebody demonstrate a legitimate need for having a restricted (weapon) — how rigorously that provision is being enforced.”
Tony Bernardo, executive director of the Canadian Shooting Sports Association, says the number of restricted guns may have risen but it hasn’t been accompanied by an increase in the level of gun crime. If there are more guns, it is because recreational shooting has become more popular, he says.
“Shooting as a sport is growing significantly, it has been for a number of years,” said Bernardo.
See the rest of the story: http://ipolitics.ca/2016/02/11/number-of-restricted-guns-in-canada-shot-up-during-harpers-government/
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LAWYER OF SHOOTING VICTIM FILES SUIT AGAINST ATTORNEY GENERAL, RCMP, MOUNTIE (By Gordon Sinclair Jr. | Winnipeg Free Press | February 12, 2016)
A lawyer representing 16-year-old shooting victim Calli Vanderaa and her single father, Corey, filed suit Friday against the Attorney General of Canada, the RCMP and the Mountie whose semi-automatic pistol was used in the attack last October.
The statement of claim, prepared by the family’s lawyer, Robert Tapper, asks for unspecified general, punitive, aggravated and special damages as a result of “life threatening and major injuries” that also left the Winnipeg High School girl with post-traumatic stress disorder, according the suit.
While Calli finally returned to school after the Christmas break, the suit contends she continues to suffer from both the psychological and physiological consequences of the incident.
“She will suffer for a lifetime,” the suit says.
The shooting occurred Oct. 23 in the parking lot of a Windsor Park convenience store Calli and some friends had stopped at before the shooting began by an assailant she had never seen before.
The single bullet, that struck Calli as she sat in a car, “hiding,” damaged her lung, ribs, spleen and colon.
The suit states the firearm was stolen by the shooter earlier that evening from an RCMP cruiser that had been parked on a street in front of the southeast Winnipeg residence of the Mountie named as a defendant in the action, Sgt. Chris McCuen.
It also alleges that McCuen left his police belt, “replete with firearm, taser and baton, visible on the back seat of the car.”
In leaving it there in an insecure manner, the suit further states, McCuen “violated police policy, common sense and safety regulations.”
It specifically sites the “protection of the firearm and its securing is fundamental to any trained officer,” the statement says, “and is so basic that it must have been that the defendant McCuen was not operating in any thoughtful manner.”
It further states by not following police policy on the safe storage of firearms his actions were willful, reckless, dangerous and negligent.
Two men, Matthew Wilfred McKay, 22, and Matthew Andrew Miles, 25, face numerous charges. A statement of defence has yet to be filed.
See the story: http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/biographies/304912861.html
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AMPUTATION NO LIMIT FOR DRUMMING, KAYAKING, SKIING, SHOOTING TEEN (By Jonathan Charlton | Saskatoon StarPhoenix | February 16, 2016)
When Jesse Ehman was a kid, he got to meet a famous musician — Rick Allen, the one-armed drummer of Def Leppard.
“He showed me his drum set, some of the things he has for drumming with one hand. Unlike me — I use a prosthetic with a drumstick — he used various foot pedals from the drums. You press them and they play different sounds, so that was cool,” the 17-year-old said.
The meeting proved to be an inspiration. Within six months Jesse, who is a partial left arm amputee, was taking drum lessons. He plays to this day, getting together with his friends to jam.
“It’s really fun. There’s lots of new songs to play and I’m always learning new stuff,” he said.
Jesse was born 16 weeks premature. When he was about two or three weeks old, an IV in his left arm became infected. It started to spread and doctors had to amputate his arm.
“Of course we were worried, but that’s what they needed to do to save our Jesse,” said his mother, Lorelei.
Growing up, Jesse was treated the same as his brother, she said. They were both expected to make their beds and help wash dishes. The one difference was that shortly after Jesse was born they connected with the War Amps for support. He got his first prosthetic, a passive hand for balance, when he was one.
“Really, growing up, we made sure Jesse had what he needed to do any activity he wanted.”
The one thing he couldn’t do was play on the monkey bars — but he now has his driver’s licence (his truck has a standard transmission), plays the drums, kayaks, snowboards and goes wakeboarding.
“I can pretty much do everything everyone else can do. Sometimes it takes a little longer or I have to use a prosthetic, but other than that, I wouldn’t say there’s any limitations,” Jesse said.
The custom prosthetic he uses for biathlons — which involve cross-country skiing and target shooting — has a sleeve that fits over the stump of his arm, with a metal bar that locks at a right angle so he can shoot while prone. At the moment, the design doesn’t really work if he’s standing, but it’s an improvement on the stand he had used previously.
“It’s really fun,” Jesse said of the sport. “It’s kind of challenging — your heart rate is up and you have to try to calm yourself down for shooting — that was interesting. Just learning how to ski more efficiently with less wasted energy, that was fun, too.”
He’s a beginner, but looks to future participation in parasport. He went to a camp last year where he met other athletes and saw how they dealt with their amputations. He picked up tips on how to keep his amputated arm warm while he skis.
Support from the War Amps has been instrumental in showing the options available to Jesse, Lorelai said. The group has not only shared information about prosthetics but matched mothers of other children with amputations to talk.
Jesse said any kids who find themselves in a similar situation should know that no matter the disability, they can do anything anyone else can.
“It may take some time, but if you try really hard and you don’t give up, you can do anything.”
See the story: http://www.leaderpost.com/health/family-child/amputation+limit+drumming+kayaking+skiing+shooting+teen/11724966/story.htm
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LETHAL-FORCE DEBATE ERUPTS IN RURAL ONTARIO AFTER MAN IS FATALLY SHOT (By Marcus Gee | The Globe and Mail | February 12, 2016)
On Feb. 4, at about 3 a.m., shots rang out on Highway 56. What has happened since reveals a divide over the use of lethal force in defence of home and property.
Peter Khill, 26, stands charged with second-degree murder after a confrontation with a man in his driveway in the middle of the night. Police say Jon Styres, 29, died of shotgun wounds after reportedly trying to steal a pickup truck from the house on Highway 56 in Binbrook, a historic village on the outskirts of Hamilton famous for its fall fair.
This is a catch-all ASF view; only displays when an unsupported article type is put in an ASF drop zone
South of the border, where private firearms are more common, it is far from unusual for a person to take up arms to defend property. It is rare here, and Canadian authorities are far less forgiving when people use a weapon. But even in Canada, the issue of what citizens can or should do in such a case is controversial.
The Binbrook incident set off a sharp online exchange, with one side saying citizens must have the right to defend themselves and the other that they should leave law enforcement to the police. A petition calling on prosecutors to withdraw the charges against Mr. Khill had collected close to 13,000 signatures by Friday afternoon.
“Canadians must have a right to use as much force as needed to protect their families, children, life, limb and property without fear of prosecution,” it said. “This may include deadly force.”
A counter-petition had logged just over 1,000 signatures, according to its website, Justice for Jon Styres. “Please don’t allow the charges to be dropped or Canada will start to become the U.S.A. and homeowners will start taking the law into their own hands,” the site said. “Nobody has the right to kill anybody over possessions.”
Overlaid on the dispute is the issue of race. Police said Mr. Styres came from Ohsweken, a village on the Six Nations reserve about a 20-minute drive from Binbrook. When Mr. Khill was brought to a Hamilton court for a bail hearing on Friday, Mr. Styres’s group sat on one side of the courtroom, Mr. Khill’s group on the other. The court reserved judgment on the bail issue until next Thursday.
See the rest of the story: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/toronto/lethal-force-debate-erupts-in-rural-ontario-after-man-is-fatally-shot/article28752343/
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JEB BUSH’S PITCH TO SOUTH CAROLINA: A GUN WITH HIS NAME ON IT (By Theodore Schleifer and Ashley Killough | CNN | February 17, 2016)
Washington (CNN) Jeb Bush is taking a shot at wooing South Carolinians by appealing to their Second Amendment support.
The former Florida governor on Tuesday tweeted a photo of a firearm emblazoned with a personalized insignia on top of the gun that read, “Gov. Jeb. Bush.”
Bush appeared at FN Manufacturing, a high-security firearm company in Columbia, South Carolina, for a town hall on Tuesday morning, where he again shared his credentials on the Second Amendment. Speaking to reporters in Leesville later Tuesday, Bush said he didn’t know about the tweet but said it was a tribute to his appearance at the company.
“The purpose was we went to a gun manufacturing facility where lots of jobs are created, high-wage jobs. And I received a gun and I was honored to have it,” Bush said.
Bush commonly touts his gun record as governor of Florida, and it is a calling card in South Carolina, which holds its Republican primary on Saturday. Military issues have long been dominant in South Carolina politics, and Republican candidates in recent days have looked to one-up one another with displays of machismo and national security toughness. Bush notched 10% in the latest CNN/ORC South Carolina pollreleased on Tuesday, good enough for fourth place there.
The New York Daily News teased Bush in their Wednesday cover, featuring the gun photo and the headline, “Desperate Jeb gets ripped for tweet suggesting guns are ‘America.'”
See the story: http://www.cnn.com/2016/02/16/politics/jeb-bush-gun-america-tweet/
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UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS BEGRUDGINGLY ALLOWS GUNS IN CLASSROOMS (By The Associated Press | February 17, 2016)
Concealed handguns will be allowed in University of Texas classrooms but generally banned from dorms under rules begrudgingly approved Wednesday by the school’s president, whose hand was forced by a new state law.
Like many who study or work at the school in liberal Austin, President Greg Fenves opposes allowing guns on the roughly 50,000-student campus. Texas’ universities had been gun-free zones under the state’s previous concealed handgun laws, but the Republican-dominated Legislature voted last year to force public universities to allow license holders to bring their guns to campus starting Aug. 1.
“I do not believe handguns belong on a university campus, so this decision has been the greatest challenge of my presidency to date,” Fenves said in announcing his decision to adopt rules recommended by a campus study group in December.
Gun-rights activists insist the right to have weapons on campus falls under the Second Amendment and they call it a critical self-defense measure.
However, the so-called “campus carry” measure has met with fierce resistance from students, faculty and other staff, including University of Texas System Chancellor William McRaven, the former head of U.S. Special Operations Command who directed the raid that killed Osama Bin Laden.
“The presence of handguns at an institution of higher learning is contrary to our mission of education and research, which is based on inquiry, free speech, and debate,” Fenves wrote in a letter to McRaven.
Private schools are allowed to keep banning weapons and Fenves noted most have opted to do so, including Baylor, Rice, Southern Methodist and Texas Christian universities, the largest and most influential private schools in the state.
State lawmakers allowed public universities to carve out some gun-free zones as long as it didn’t result in a campus-wide ban. Fenves said a blanket ban on guns in classrooms would have violated the law.
In most cases, a person must be 21 years old to get a gun license in Texas, which trims the gun-carrying student population a bit. And while licensed students will be allowed to bring their handguns to class, they won’t be able to do so openly. A separate law that allows the open carry of handguns doesn’t apply to college campuses.
Critics have predicted that allowing guns on campus will make it harder for schools to recruit top students and faculty. Gun-Free UT, a group of students, faculty and staff, has said allowing guns in classrooms will create a threatening atmosphere and chill free speech in academics. Nobel Prize-winning physicist Steven Weinberg has said he will put into his syllabus that his class is not open to students carrying guns.
The gun rules have some other exceptions.
Certain laboratories will remain gun-free, as will areas or events that involve school-age children. State law still prohibits weapons at sporting events.
Guns will generally be banned from dorm rooms, but they will be allowed in residence hall common areas such as dining rooms and study areas.
Family members who are licensed to carry can keep their weapons when visiting students. University staff members who are licensed to carry may also hold onto their weapons if they must enter a dorm.
The rules now go to the University of Texas System Regents for review. If no changes are made within 90 days, the rules will be final.
See the story: http://www.al.com/news/index.ssf/2016/02/university_of_texas_will_allow.html
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THE CSSA THANKS YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT!
The CSSA is the voice of the sport shooter and firearms enthusiast in Canada. Our national membership supports and promotes Canada’s firearms heritage, traditional target shooting competitions, modern action shooting sports, hunting, and archery. We support and sponsor youth programs and competitions that promote these Canadian heritage activities.
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To join or donate to the CSSA, visit: http://www.cssa-cila.org
To SUBSCRIBE or UNSUBSCRIBE to the CSSA-CILA E-News, please contact us at enews@cssa-cila.org
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CANADIAN SHOOTING SPORTS ASSOCIATION | CANADIAN INSTITUTE FOR LEGISLATIVE ACTION
116 Galaxy Boulevard, Etobicoke ON M9W 4Y6
Phone: 416-679-9959 | Fax: 416-679-9910
Toll Free: 1-888-873-4339
E-Mail: info@cssa-cila.org
Website: www.cssa-cila.org
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